When I read King’s words I think about their significance in our personal relationships, their wisdom for our nation, and their considerations for the attitudes and values we hold in the more abstract sense. I have trouble understanding suicide bombers, religious or political extremists who want to oppress others, the insatiable greed that drives people to unspeakable acts, but each of us is limited by our experience and understanding of the world. Perhaps these people are fueled by hate, and perhaps not, but either way, a combination of culture foremost, and DNA and environment set them on a course, just as we were set on a course, and still within them, within each of us, is the power for great love. Like the Indian proverb says, it just depends on which wolf is fed.

I may not understand the acts of some, but I cannot judge. How can I say that given the same set of circumstances I would behave better? I want to believe I am different. I want to believe in my own goodness, that my goodness is better and purer than the goodness of others. It is easier to give myself permission to judge others and feel superior by comparison, to set myself apart as somehow infused with more purity of spirit. But this is naive. We are more alike than we are different.

So I may not understand, and it is not easy, indeed, sometimes it seems impossible, but it behooves us to follow King’s advice and achieve our noblest abilities, to love and respect others as a unique realization of creation even if we condemn their acts. To love someone is not to condone all they do, it is only an acknowlegement of how frail and fallible we are. This admission of weakness, of the impossibility of perfection, cannot be made without a long stare in the mirror in which we cannot hide from ourselves our own many transgressions. The forgiveness of ourselves permits the forgiveness of others, and vice versa. It is all tied up together and forgiveness allows us to emerge from the shadows, perhaps still afraid of our shame, but knowing that weakness is the price of breath.

Always to remember, there but for the Grace of God, go I.

We’re better served by shining light in the darkness to help others to see the way to peace than by standing on the sidelines critiquing, all the while congratulating ourselves, taking credit for favorable circumstances over which we had no control. To use King’s metaphor, we must know when to dim the lights, when to not fan the flames and nourish the fire…

Enough of my opining. Now for the words of the truly wise Martin Luther King. Please take the time to let the words sink in as you read them.

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The Greek language comes out with another word for love. It is the word agape. And agape is more than eros; agape is more than philia; agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return.

It is an overflowing love; it’s what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men.

And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them. You look at every man, and you love him because you know God loves him. And he might be the worst person you’ve ever seen.

Now for the few moments left, let us move from the practical how to the theoretical why. It’s not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.

If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends.

Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.

The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off. It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.

I think I mentioned before that sometime ago my brother and I were driving one evening to Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Atlanta. He was driving the car. And for some reason the drivers were very discourteous that night. They didn’t dim their lights; hardly any driver that passed by dimmed his lights. And I remember very vividly, my brother A. D. looked over and in a tone of anger said: “I know what I’m going to do. The next car that comes along here and refuses to dim the lights, I’m going to fail to dim mine and pour them on in all of their power.”

And I looked at him right quick and said: “Oh no, don’t do that. There’d be too much light on this highway, and it will end up in mutual destruction for all. Somebody got to have some sense on this highway.”

Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs. And Toynbee tells that out of the twenty-two civilizations that have risen up, all but about seven have found themselves in the junkheap of destruction.

It is because civilizations fail to have sense enough to dim the lights.

And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction. And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history. Somewhere somebody must have some sense.

Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.

King’s metaphor about us having the sense to dim the lights reminds of the many metaphors about sharing the light:

Yes, we need to have the courage to dim the lights. By doing so, we brighten the light within.

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